Remove Rust Easily and Effectively With Salt and Electricity.

Hello everyone, want to find out how to rid rust on your tools for cheap, easily and safely?

This is a inexpensive, safe and interesting science experiment you should try on your tools to rid of rust Instead of using acid, Grinding or heavy wire brushing and loosing any steel. By using electrolysis to remove the rust from your dirty tools or just about anything rusty that you can submerge in a container of salt water that isn't brass, aluminum, copper or exotic metals and alloys, you will lose almost all rust and not lose any of your metal in the process.

Step 1: What Is Electrolysis?

Electrolysis is a way of turning direct current (DC power) into a chemical reaction to produce hydrogen and oxygen and during this reaction the anode is forming large quantities of rust and slowly eats away at the anode while the cathode is doing the opposite and is bubbling hydrogen constantly and during that it cleans away rust which is exactly what we are going to do.

Step 2: Setup.

Choosing the right container and filling it with saline solution (salt water)

Fill your desired container with water and add salt( the more salt the faster the process and a saturated solution will work best. Make sure that your container is not going to be used again due to staining the container with dirty rust after use. If you use salt water from the ocean like i am then there is no need for adding salt.

Wiring it all up.

Take a paper clip and unwind it until it has a hook shape that fits the neck of the bottle and attach a wire or alligator clip to to the paperclip like the picture above and make sure that the paperclip is in the solution except for the alligator clip because otherwise your alligator clip will get rusty.Add another alligator clip but this time to the object you want to rid of its rust and bath it completely in the solution and its fine if your alligator clip on the cathode is in the solution because it wont grow rust but always make sure that you dry your alligator clips after use.

Note

Do not let the two wires touch as it would cause a short circuit which stops the experiment and if you use a lithium battery to power the experiment and the two wires touch then it could literally make the battery explode but your safe without a lithium battery. Also its a good idea to do this experiment outside because hydrogen and chlorine gas is produced and hydrogen can ignite very easily and chlorine is very toxic but i did mine inside because mine was not producing that much chlorine in the process and if you don't want to have the problem with chlorine gas, then instead of using salt as your electrolyte, just use Washing Soda as your electrolyte.
And do not use stainless steel tools as it has a poisonous substance it produces.

Step 3: Waiting for Magic to Happen.

Hook up your power supply (i used 5v from an arduino) and your cathode should start bubbling like the photo i have shown while the Anode (paper clip) grows rusty sludge and makes the water turn dirty as you can see by the animated GIF above. I waited for as long as 30 minutes for the process to be done and washed the screw driver thoroughly with steel wool and paper towl to get the muck off and your done, your tool has now got no rust but if your tool does have a little bit of rust on it still then just put it back into the solution again for a little longer.

Step 4: What About Different Types of Tools?

What about different types of tools because other tools might be harder to wash with steel wool and i'm going to relate to that with a drill bit and a pair of pliers.

Pliers.

The pliers was easily washed with steel wool after electrolysis and got rid of all rust but because rust eats at metal, it does leave the metal with mild marks and if it were heavy rust on the pliers it would have left bigger dents trailing across the metal like the screw driver and can be smoothed with sandpaper.

Drill bit.

The drill bit was washed forcefully and although it did clean the outside layer of thread, it did not clean the inside of the thread because it is hard to get the rust out of the inside especially when it is sharp and you don't want to cut yourself so i found a solution to this problem.

First. Use steel wool to clean as much as you can,

Second. Get a spoon of baking soda and mix it with a few drops of water till it becomes a thick paste and rub it all over the drill bit where you need to clean just like the picture above

Third. Place the drill bit in your sink (i'm using a container in a sink so i can put more baking soda in)

Fourth. Get around 2 ounces of vinegar and pour it in and watch the reaction take place like the animated GIF above.

Fifth. Use cotton swabs to clean out the inside of the drill bit until gunk stops going on your cotton swab.